Talking about teaching and learning

April 2014

04/29/2014

The government did not put aside enough money to repair mouldy schools in its most recent budget, Education Minister Krista Kiuru has admitted.

Kiuru's revelation comes despite an estimate by the local government association that thousands of children in schools and daycares across Finland are suffering from breathing problems and allergies as a result of bad ventilation or mouldy buildings.

Speaking on Yle’s Aamu-TV breakfast programme, Kiuru said that 35 million euros has so far been earmarked for fixing mould-ridden buildings. But she said that the number of schools plagued by interior air problems, and applying for repair funds, runs into the hundreds. “The worry is that the amount of money going to each school will now not be enough to get them into good condition,” Kiuru admitted.

“For this reason, we’ve been pushing for more money. But so far we have not succeeded,” she said.

Kiuru said she now intends to lobby the government to allocate more funds in its supplementary budget to address the problem.

As part of the School Class project, which gives schoolchildren the chance to work in newsrooms for a day, three students came to Yle to interview the minister on education matters including the mould problem and whether the summer holidays should start and finish later, in line with much of the rest of Europe.

04/27/2014

One of the many important takeaways from Finland’s education reform is that it was instigated as a direct response to economic hardship. Education got first priority when it came to rebuilding the country’s economy. The fact that Finland’s economy is thriving today is, according to some, the direct result of a superior school system. The education system emphasizes vocational education, and as a result avoids leaving behind those with less enthusiasm for academics. Higher productivity is an obvious though often underappreciated result of a good education system that legislators in the United States should keep in mind when investing in education.

The United States’ No Child Left Behind Act, a bipartisan bill signed in 2001 by President George W. Bush, focused on disadvantaged students in public schools. The Act has largely failed to raise the quality of public education in the United States, and the country’s PISA-scores have remained roughly the same since the beginning of the 2000s. Since the signing of the Act in 2001, the political scene has grown fractured — a bipartisan education bill is almost unthinkable today.

Randi Weingarten, the president of the largest US Teacher’s Union, released a statement in response to the PISA results, which underlines some of Act’s perceived problem-areas:

“Today’s PISA results drive home what has become abundantly clear: While the intentions may have been good, a decade of top-down, test-based schooling created by No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top — focused on hyper-testing students, sanctioning teachers and closing schools — has failed to improve the quality of American public education,” she said. “Sadly, our nation has ignored the lessons from the high-performing nations.”

On the other hand, her organization also released a video that warned against the tabloid interpretations of the rankings. It argued that the rankings should not be used to favor “for-profit education, high-stakes testing, merit pay, weaken[ing] teacher voice[s], closing of neighborhood schools or pink slip teachers.” Considering that the teachers’ unions are amongst the most generous contributors to Democratic campaigns, it is easy to see how the PISA tests could quickly become partisan fodder.

Given this context, the lessons learned from Finland’s education system understandably seem to confuse U.S. commentators. The system is difficult to fit squarely within either U.S. political camp. In the United States, differentiated pay for better teachers and more frequent testing can be seen as a typically Republican approach to education reform. More recently, voucher programs have become the focus of much GOP debate, embraced by Mitt Romney in the 2012 elections.

The Democrats, on the other hand, typically focus on increased teacher support; their official position is that “The Obama administration is working to overhaul the “No Child Left Behind” program and provide teachers with more professional support and resources — while also holding them accountable.”

Interestingly, Finland provides a kind of synthesis of these two approaches, and offers a solution where no child is left behind. In Finland, though the system is based on equality — which to some screams Scandinavian socialism — this equality is largely seen as an equality of opportunity; kids should have the same starting point, and disadvantaged kids should receive special attention.

This seems a political goal both sides of the political spectrum in the United States could get behind — equality of opportunity is after all one of the most deeply American ideals around. However, many liberals have latched on to the Finnish model, and their approval has triggered the inevitable disapproval of many right-leaning Americans.

04/23/2014

Back to Helsingin Sanomat now, where there is a feature story on the City of Helsinki’s decision not to repair schools in areas with few children.

When deciding which schools to renovate and repair, the Helsinki Education Department looks at the following three factors: population projection – the forecast for how many families with children will move to the school’s intake area in the next few years, space – how much space the school building has per pupil, and repair need – if the school requires an expensive overhaul, the city can save by giving up the space entirely.

The district of Käpylä is one of the first to feel the pinch. The Education Department has proposed that the Comprehensive School, the Käpylä Primary School and the Koskela Comprehensive School be merged into one, phasing out the Comprehensive School already by 2015.

Similar scenarios are being played out in the districts of Puistola and Tapanila. The threat of school closures angers parents. "First we were told that the primary school for first and second grade would be closed. When we contacted the Education Department, we heard that they are closing the entire school. The main building was just renovated to the tune of 2.4 million euros. What is the sense in that?” asks one disgruntled parent.

We know the figures. England is one of the most overworked European nations. What's really new is that we no longer question or even quarrel with this fact. Instead we deploy American-lite righteousness. Work is now not merely a sign of virtue, it is a sign of proper panic, of appropriately anxious aspiration. Any other approach takes you right down benefits street.

Such values have easily transferred to education, where decades of inequality in provision and under-investment have neatly reduced the problems in our system to one of effort, or the lack of it. When a few years ago I interviewed Sir Michael Wilshaw, then still head of Mossbourne academy, he brimmed with anger at "clockwatching" teachers whom he believed had failed to bring poorer pupils on.

Concerns like these have now morphed into a settled theory of education, and childhood itself. Educational reform now largely equals intensive schooling: early-morning catch-up classes, after-school clubs, longer terms, shorter holidays, more testing, more homework.

The trouble is, the human body and human communities do not flourish through being flogged. Families don't benefit from frenetic rushing. They simply forget who each other is, or could be, which is where the real problems begin. Overtired children don't learn. And hungry overtired children simply fall asleep, or kick off.

We could have learned this years ago from some of the most impressive education systems in the world, where children do not start formal learning till as late as seven – and certainly not at two, the scary suggestion now being made by some in government – and where the school day is much shorter.

Visitors to some of the Nordic countries, including Finland – still the highest-performing system in Europe – report that it can look as if the children are doing very little in the classroom. There, the educational conversation is all about deep flourishing, enjoyment, stimulation of a different kind.

That makes sense, right? Some of the most productive, and highly professional, people I know work relatively short days and even seem to spend an awful lot of time in contemplation: reading, thinking, staring into space. As one eminent academic said to me, puzzled at so much manic activity in modern living: "I have never worked a 15-hour day in my life."

And the language of effort will not eradicate – only possibly obscure – the educational inequalities that have shifted remarkably little over my lifetime. A poor child on site gets a much-needed breakfast and long hours of subsidised childcare. A better-off child is more likely to be wheeled around to all sorts of extracurricular activities that might make them fractious and overtired but will surely enrich them, in every way, later in life.

This government won't shift gears. It is fully signed up to the ghost road, particularly for the poor. But in other more interesting spaces and places there is a return to ideas that celebrate a different approach to learning, earning and being a human being.

04/05/2014

The National Union of University Students in Finland, known by its acronym SYL, blames the administration for once again worsening the situation of already disadvantaged university students with its decision to cut study grant payments for study towards a second degree.

Beginning August 2015, students will no longer be eligible for monthly study grant payments for studies leading towards a second academic degree of the same level. The decision means that additional study grant payments will not be issued for additional months of study.

“This is the latest in a long line of government decisions to undermine the study grant. On the whole, the government has pursued a very short-sighted policy towards students,” said Piia Kuosmanen, SYL’s Chair.

Yle data shows that in practice, the decision means that students will not be granted study grant payments towards a new degree. Students will, however, not be forced to give up monthly payments that have been granted but not used.

At present, students of higher education at each of Finland’s universities are granted a monthly study grant for a maximum of 70 months.

The calculated savings of the new policy should net 2 million euros in 2015, rising to 11 million euros in savings by 2018.

Kuosmanen says the government’s new decision will make it even harder than it already is for students to graduate and cope in their work.

“This cut hits the most vulnerable students the hardest. It will raise the threshold for young people who discover that they are studying in the wrong field, discouraging them from changing the course of their studies. The ability to switch degree programmes in Finland’s higher education system remains difficult, with no sign of improvement,” said Kuosmanen.

The Finnish government has shuffled variety of positions in Ministries. According to the official release, the President of the Republic released Merja Kyllönen from her duties as the Minister of Transport and Paavo Arhinmäki from his duties as the Minister of Culture and Sport.

At the same time, Minister of Housing and Communications Pia Viitanen was designated to handle matters covered by the Ministry of Education and Culture and use the title of Minister of Culture and Housing. She was released from responsibilities covered by the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

Minister of Education Krista Kiuru was designated to handle matters covered by the Ministry of Transport and Communications and use the title of Minister of Education and Communications.

The changes are seen as a move to cut the government spending; however, the Finnish government did not clarify the reasoning behind the shuffle.

I have no idea what this may mean for the future of Finnish education. We may need to dedicate a #FinnEdChat session to exploring it.

Via the US blog Ordinary Times: Why Finns? Click through for the full post, which includes tables, photos, and a video. Excerpt and then a comment:

Finland’s education system is good, but it’s[sic] goodness doesn’t fully explain the obsession of some news outlets with it. Even The Guardian took the time to scold the US to learn from the Finns.

It’s little surprise. Finland has been painted as a haven for eschewing testing, accountability, and competition. It’s the counterexample to be thrown at those who would tweak the system we have created in undesirable directions.

I question the motives of those who exalt the Finnish system. I suspect that it is a carefully curated example, picked to highlight desirable lessons and avoid undesirable ones regardless of their actual truth.

Below are the PISA 2012 scores, which supporters use to lay claim to Finnish superiority. [Click through to see the table]

Did you find Finland? It’s not as simple as looking at the top of the list. That’s because Finland isn’t actually the best system. According to the test, the preferred metric of Finnophiles, the best system is found in Shanghai.

Contrarian arguments can be fun, but this contrarian's argument is as carefully "curated" as his supposed opponents.

The early PISA results surprised the Finns as much as anyone, because they weren't trying for high test scores; they were trying for an egalitarian society of well-educated citizens. PISA was a side effect, and I gather that some Finnish educators think PISA tests for the wrong things anyway.

Nevertheless, PISA was a welcome political windfall, and falling scores on recent exams have been cause for concern—but not because they indicate the system itself isn't that good.

The scores, to the extent that they're a valid metric of any system, indicate that something the Finns were doing (or not doing) was affecting current students' scores. Maybe not enough money was going into the system; school funding seems to be an increasing problem as Finland's economy weakens. Or factors hurting student performance have been worsening, while teachers haven't been adapting rapidly enough.

Whatever the reason, the system has one advantage, it seems to me: It's already gone through the experience of self-transformation. As a society and as a school system, the Finns know how to identify a problem and then solve it. If they decide that PISA scores (or some other data) indicate they have a problem with falling PISA scores, they should be able to deal with it...in part, by seeing how other systems are succeeding, and adapting those successes to their own schools.

Given the profound conservatism of most education systems, that's an advantage all by itself.

04/02/2014

Finnish children scored highly enough to finish joint fourth out of OECD countries with Australia in the ranking, which made Finland the highest-performing European country in problem-solving. Ahead of Finland were South Korea, Japan and Canada.

15-year-olds from 44 countries participated in the optional part of the study out of 65 countries and regions participating in the wider PISA study. The tests focused on practical problem-solving using everyday situations, which were not directly linked to any school subject.

In general boys were more successful at problem-solving than girls, but in Finland the roles were reversed: girls did significantly better than boys. In all, some 3,700 pupils from 311 schools took part in the study.